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  5. The Teacher Strike Wave and the Effects of Work Stoppages
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The Teacher Strike Wave and the Effects of Work Stoppages

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 3, 2021 3:45 PM - 5:45 PM (EST)

Hosted By: Labor and Employment Relations Association
  • Chair: Jake Rosenfeld, Washington University in St. Louis

On Strike for Our Students: The Upsurge of Teachers Strikes since 2018

Rebecca Givan
,
Rutgers University

Abstract

In 2018, teachers in West Virginia organized a statewide walkout, finally acting after years of low pay and underfunding. The successful strike in West Virginia spurred similar walkouts across the country. The earlier 2012 teachers’ strike for “the schools Chicago students deserve” marked a turning point. Teachers, in strong alliances with their communities confronted and remade a decades long narrative about greedy, lazy teachers and overly powerful unions. The key demands of the ultimately successful strike were framed around proper funding of education, inequity and racial justice in a school system primarily serving students of color, and the need for nurses and social workers to support students. Although this strike garnered national attention, particularly for its focus on ‘common good’ demands and the willingness to take on a Democratic mayor who was aligned with the neoliberal education reform, it was several years before teachers elsewhere took up the strike as their prime weapon against austerity. By 2019, when the Chicago teachers' struck again, the political landscape had dramatically changed, largely because of the movement spawned by their earlier strike, and their deep organizing and commitment to the principal of the just and equitable provision of public education. The paper includes two key components. First, it presents an empirical overview of US teachers/ strikes since 2012. Using an original database of strikes in this time period, the paper demonstrates that the strike is truly back. Second, the paper contextualizes the reemergence of the strike as a response to neoliberalism, the dominance of austerity politics, and the massive cuts to education funding and educator pay.

Do Teacher Strikes Make Parents Pro- or Anti-Labor? The Effects of Labor Unrest on Mass Attitudes

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez
,
Columbia University
Suresh Naidu
,
Columbia University
Adam Reich
,
Columbia University

Abstract

Strikes are a central tool of organized labor, yet existing research has focused on the economic consequences of strikes, rather than their political effects. We examine how labor actions by teachers, a well-organized group of public-sector workers, changes mass attitudes about the strikes and the labor movement more generally. Our context involves large-scale teacher strikes and walkouts in six states in 2018. Using an original survey in the affected states, we study the causal effect of strike exposure among parents whose children's ages place them in or out of school. Firsthand strike exposure increased parents' support for the teachers and for the labor movement, as well as parents' interest in labor action (though not necessarily through traditional unions). We next examine the mechanisms for these strike effects, identifying the role of political education of parents by teachers. Our results underscore the importance of strikes as a political strategy for unions.

The Effects of Strikes on Firms and Workers

Maxim Massenkoff
,
University of California-Berkeley
Nathan Wilmers
,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract

Labor strikes in the United States have declined precipitously since the 1980s. The increased use of strike replacement workers and an employer-friendly legal and regulatory environment has led some researchers to argue that strikes have lost their potency. We gather a series of novel microdata to test this claim, performing the first analysis connecting strikes, revenue, and employment at the establishment level. In an event study framework, we find that businesses experience a substantial 10 percent decline in revenue and employment after a strike, with the effects concentrated in the first two years following. These declines appear suddenly with strikes and are not anticipated by prior business problems. Data on collective bargaining agreements and person-level data from the CPS and SIPP suggest that the declines in revenue and employment do not stem from generous wage settlements or from pay or benefit increases for striking workers. Instead, strikes appear to drive business toward competitors. These findings suggest that strikes, when they do occur, are costly for both struck firms and striking workers.

Teacher Strikes: Why Some and Not Others?

Chantal D. Smith
,
Howard University

Abstract

The National Education Association (NEA) was founded in 1857 and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in 1916,however, these groups did not win collective bargaining rights until the 1960s. Prior to the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), teacher unions were primarily focused on improvements in salaries and wages, benefits, working hours and working conditions. However, with the passage of ESEA along with other educational legislation (i.e. No Child Left Behind) and the reduction in school funding during and since the Great Recession, the issues have expanded to topics such as student discipline, class size, teacher evaluations and charter schools. In 2018 and 2019 the nation saw teacher strikes and walkouts from California to West Virginia, and 2020 has ushered in strikes in Chicago and St. Paul. Two questions arise: first, given the relative success of teacher strikes and the nationwide issues in public K-12 education, why are some districts in a given state moved to strike rather than others; second, what is making agreements hard to reach (Chicago schools have gone on strike in 2012 and 2020)? Using the Chicago Public School District as a case study, this paper will evaluate the effects of the 1987 and the 2012 teacher strikes on average teacher salaries, per pupil expenditures, and student/teacher ratio. This paper will also look for spillover effects in the surrounding school districts.
Discussant(s)
William E. Spriggs
,
Howard University and AFL-CIO
Stacey Davis-Gates
,
Chicago Teachers Union
JEL Classifications
  • J5 - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining
  • J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor